NAB 2009: On-Demand Local-TV Streaming To Cellphones Promoted

By Joseph Palenchar -- TWICE, 4/24/2009

Las Vegas — Video-to-cellphone pioneer MobiTV has developed a platform that will enable local DTV stations to deliver video-on-demand to cellphones and to mobile devices equipped with WiMAX and Wi-Fi, the company announced here at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention.

MobiTV is focusing its efforts on mobile devices equipped with mobile-ATSC tuners, which would receive the free over-the-air programming of local DTV stations. The phones would use cellular data channels to stream subscription-based video-on-demand programs from the stations, “giving carriers, content providers and MobiTV new monetization opportunities,” the company said.

The platform, called MixTV, combines free mobile DTV content with a subscription-based seven-day window of on-demand programming from local stations. MixTV also supports audience measurement and dynamic ad insertion, the company said.

For its demonstration here, the company is tuning into live mobile DTV broadcasts from PBS station KLVX and Sinclair station KVCW and demonstrating on-demand streaming of a seven-day library of all of the stations’ previously broadcast content over a mobile WiMAX wireless-data network.

The service is intended specifically for cellphones because “a specific chip is necessary,” a spokesman said. For now, that rules out MixTV service on portable media players equipped with mobile ATSC tuner and Wi-Fi, and personal navigation devices equipped with cellular data

MobiTV was the first company to provide prerecorded and live TV programs to cellphones, initially on the Sprint cellular network.